What A Difference a Year Makes!

Last December I had a 3D ultrasound done on Harrison. He wouldn't show us much during the ultrasound, but he did do something quite often. He sucked his toes. It was too cute to see him do this. Well, it has been just over 11 months since the ultrasound and look at what he is doing. You know they say that what your baby does in the ultrasound is indicative of what he does outside of it.

Harrison & His Monkey

I was trying to take pictures of Harrison and his "friends" tonight. His friends are some of the stuffed animals that we have accumulated so far. He loves to wallow around in the animal pile. Of all of his friends, monkey is his favorite. Monkey has no name. Well, actually, he does...it is monkey. He sleeps with his monkey every night and sucks on its tail. I know, it is pretty gross. Either way, he loves that monkey and when we started playing tonight, he went absolutely crazy.

Thanksgiving 2008

As we celebrated Harrison's first Thanksgiving, we thought about what memories he would have when he is our age. I guess that would mean what events would we create that turn into lasting memories for him. For Adam, his memory of Thanksgiving is big family feasts, with emphasis on lots of family and lots of food. While I have a similar memory of Thanksgiving, that isn't what sticks out in my mind the most. When Thanksgiving approaches for me, I start to cringe as I think about the turkey sweatshirt that my mom wears EVERY Thanksgiving. Not only is it a turkey sweatshirt, but on the sweatshirt, the turkey's nose, sticks off of the article of clothing. Crazy, I know, but that is something I think of each Thanksgiving.

For Harrison, we can't say for sure what will stick out in his mind the most, but we had a really fun time. Adam pulled him around the kitchen in a plastic container. We played on the playground close to our house (Harrison loved the wood chips). And then we went to a neighbor's house for Thanksgiving dinner. And we told Harrison about a million times how thankful we are for him. Thanksgiving wasn't as serene as it was last year (sans Harrison), but it was full of so much joy.

Harrison's Playroom Debut

As the possibility of Harrison crawling becomes more imminent, I thought that now would be a good time to find a "corral" for all of his belongings. It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate to entertain these little ones. This weekend, I decided to turn my 10x10 bonus room off of our living room into Harrison's playroom. My hope is that this will be a place where he can't get into any trouble. I even baby-proofed it. At least, I baby-proofed it as much as I know how to at this point. I do have a tower of DVDs that will pose a major threat to him when he actually starts to crawl. As soon as I introduced him to it this weekend, the first thing that caught his eyes was the tower of DVDs...of course. We will be relocating this tower very soon. Anyway, he seemed very happy in it.

I also posted a close up picture of him because it seems as though all of his weight is going to his cheeks these days. I'm thinking that he may be struggling with crawling because his cheeks weigh him down. I absolutely love these cheeks.

A Cold Day at the Park

Adam and I took Harrison to the park yesterday and we had a fun time for about 5 minutes. Then we got VERY cold. Harrison really liked the infant swing. I think he had a hard time smiling because his face was frozen. Either way, he looked really cute in his fleece jumpsuit (a must for our chilly Colorado weather).

Touchdown Tigers!

Harrison and Adam celebrated the big win today. Any win is a big win these days! Anyway, Harrison looks too cute in his Clemson get-up. It looks like he is ready to play. At the rate he is growing, I think we have a defensive lineman on our hands. However, Adam has other plans for him. He wants to make sure that he is the next great Clemson quarterback.

8 Months Old

Wow...8 months old. Harrison is growing and developing appropriately. I think the most recent development is that he can feed himself his bottle. He has been able to do this occasionally for a little over a month, but he can fully do it himself now. A lot of people ask me if he is crawling yet and the answer is no. He doesn't really even seem interested in crawling. We have given him toys to go after, but if he can't get to them, he will just find something else close by to play with. While we continue in such exercises, I'm not as frustrated that he won't move towards crawling. Everyone tells me that I should count my blessings, because once they start going, they never stop. I think I have finally accepted that he is a very content, laid back child. And for that, I am extremely thankful.

Family Pictures

I know that all of our blog followers have clicked on the Blink Photography link, but there is no better time to do it than now. After seeing how amazing Hope is at photography, I begged her to do our family pictures when we were in Charleston. Her post today has a sampling of the pictures. I think they are fantastic. For those of you in the SC/NC area, you should definitely book her for your next photography need. It is well worth it. Just look and see for yourself...
http://blinkphotos.blogspot.com/

Heart-Breaker

I think that Harrison is going to be a heart-breaker one day. He has this smile that will make your heart melt. At least it does for me. Unfortunately, his mood recently has been a little atypical for him. He was so sad all day yesterday, and didn't even sleep well yesterday or last night. And for those of you who know Harrison, that is kind of a shocker. One thing he has been good at from Day 1 is sleeping. I am assuming this total change of behavior means there is a tooth right around the corner. I hope that explains his moodiness. Moody or not, he is still a heart-breaker. Oh, and Nana, he has on his first pair of Levi's (the ones you gave him) in this picture and they were TOO cute in person.

So Many Pictures

So, tonight is one of those sleepless nights that I haven't had in a while. I was in bed, thinking about all of the fun pictures I took of Harrison tonight, and just thought that I had to share them.

Tonight I was playing with all of the options on my camera, trying to figure out what everything meant. I know, it would be helpful to read the instruction manual. For that to work, I would have to be able to locate the manual, and well, I cannot. So, as I played around with the camera, Harrison gave me his most expressive moments thus far. He is getting more fun everyday, and I hope you enjoy this adorable face.

Harrison and Chewy

Harrison is still loving our dogs. He is particularly interested in their tags. It is really funny to see him play with Chewy's tags. Often when he is reaching for Chewy (or her tags), he just comes away with fistfuls of her hair. She doesn't seem to mind too much! I think she just enjoys that someone is touching her.

More Grandpa Gus

Harrison and Grandpa

Harrison got to spend some great quality time with my father the past couple of days. It seems that they both had lots of fun together. Right now, it's a toss up as to who has more hair on their head. My father might have the edge, but not for long. Thanks so much to Grandma Linda to letting him come to Denver and spend time with us.

A Fun Trip to Charleston

The Brantley Family went on another adventure to Charleston for a long weekend for Paige & Joe's wedding. We had a blast. We did a lot of really fun things. I know this will be hard to believe, but I forgot to take pictures for most of the trip. But fear not, I did take pictures my last day in Charleston. We went to lunch with our dearest friends and I snapped some pictures of Harrison with Margaret and Ashley. In the pictures of all of them, check out their faces...pee your pants funny! I'm thinking that Harrison was laughing at their faces!